Spring Ahead?

The beaver pond on a frosty March morning.

 I’m tired of writing about winter and snow and sub-zero temperatures. I’m tired of taking pictures of snow and ice and frost. I know that I obsess about the weather too much. It’s a common obsession with people who have gardens and orchards. I know it’s silly. I can’t do anything about it. But when I sit down to write and I look back over the week and I look out the window all I can think about is how cold it’s been and how much snow there is and when will it all go away.

Cold morning.

These aggravating days in early March are especially hard on me. The days are noticeably longer now. It was getting light enough in the mornings that I almost didn’t need to turn a light on to get dressed. But then we switched to Daylight Saving Time last night and now it’s dark again. I know that will change as the days get longer and longer, but I don’t like changing the clocks. It takes my brain a while to adjust to the hour’s difference. I do love the long evening hours of light when I can be outdoors working in them. But when it’s still so cold and everything is covered with snow and I can’t work outdoors, the long evening light just adds to my frustration.

Where the roof drips into the bushes.

I’ve seen some unmistakable signs of spring. The first red-winged blackbirds showed up at the feeders at the beginning of the week. On Thursday I heard them singing for the first time. That’s a sound that cheers my heart. There have been reports of robins to the south of us. Rachel even had a flock of bluebirds in her yard down in Pittsburgh. As much as I love to see them, I hope they don’t come north too soon. Seeing robins and bluebirds struggling in the snow is so sad.

Down in the barn, the chickens know spring is coming. They have responded to the longer days with more eggs. During the darkest days of winter I was only getting four or five eggs a day. Now I’m getting twelve or more. The refrigerator is full of eggs again. Yesterday I put up the “Eggs” sign down by the road. I’m selling them for $1.50 a dozen, a great price for farm fresh eggs, but I’m thinking I might raise the price to $2.00 to offset the cost of maintaining my flock a little more. I never make a profit on my eggs. I really don’t keep chickens to make money. I just love fresh eggs.

One day's eggs.

Some of my seed orders arrived in the mail last week. It’s still too early to start any seeds. I’ll plant the first trays on the 23rd. Sometimes in my overanxiousness to begin the garden year, I start seeds too soon and they get too big and leggy before Planting Out Day (May 25th). I’m not going to do that this year. My garden will be smaller this year. The past few years I’ve tended to over plant – a holdover from the days when we had lots of children at home. I don’t need to grow twenty tomato plants now. Or three hundred onions. Or forty cabbages.

Yesterday we had a cleaning day. It wasn’t a real Spring Cleaning, just a preliminary attack. Josiah tackled the kitchen and spent several hours and a lot of energy emptying and rearranging cupboards, scrubbing the stove. I cleaned the living room, music room, and my work room. I also did some rearranging in my bedroom and had Josiah help me move computer stuff around. When warm weather finally comes we will undertake a thorough Spring Cleaning. I can hardly wait.

While we were shivering with temperatures below freezing (and sometimes below zero) last week, Stacey and Miriam escaped to warm and sunny Arizona. Stacey’s Vance family had a reunion and most of her brothers and sisters were attending, so she and Miriam went too. They left on Thursday afternoon and will be home again later this afternoon. We did okay while they were gone. Not great, just okay.

At the Vance Family Reunion: Miriam, Stacey's brother Ted Shillig, brother-n-law Mike Means, Roxann Means (Stacey's sister), Kurt Shillig (Stacey's brother), Julie Shillig (Kurt's wife), Vance Shillig (Stacey's brother), and Audrey Pister (Stacey's sister).

Last night the wind began to blow hard. This morning there was a coating of ice on everything. I was nervous when it was time to leave for church. I thought about calling to say we weren’t going to make it, but I always feel bad when we don’t go. We have responsibilities. So we went. The roads were bad in a few places, but we made it there and back without a problem. It’s above freezing now and the afternoon has turned slushy and foggy. Now we’re working on lunch. We couldn’t think of anything to make (a common occurrence when Stacey isn’t here), but then we found a bag of frozen tortellini in the freezer in the woodshed, so we are having that. Then I will insist on a Sabbath nap to try and get over the time change. My body knows it was up an hour earlier than usual and it demands justice.

Good Sabbath.